6 Ways To Avoid Food Waste On Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is in the backs of everyone’s minds and it will be here and gone before you know it. Over here at Budget Dumpster, we have much to be thankful for this year and this is why we have decided to come up with a few ways to help cut back on wasted food during the holidays. Check out these 6 ways to avoid food waste on Thanksgiving.

Make a list. By make a list, I don’t just mean come up with your grocery shopping list, I mean make a list of everything you plan to make. If you are cooking with family, talk with them, so you do not end up having multiples. Write all the meals you will need to prepare and what and how much ingredients you will need. Being prepared is the best way to prevent food waste.

Use the whole vegetable. If you are in the habit of cutting off the ends of your veggies and tossing them into the garbage, stop! Using the whole vegetable will cut your time spent peeling and chopping unnecessarily. The skin of the vegetable is usually the part that holds the most nutrients, so take advantage of this and forgo the peeling.

Compost, compost, compost. If you laughed the entire time reading the above paragraph and thought to yourself, “there is no way I can go without peeling and chopping off the ends of the vegetables,” (Mom, I’m talking to you), then how about composting them? Tossing your food scraps into a compost bin can allow for them to have an extra life and turn into fertilizer for your yard or garden.

Freeze leftovers. After dinner, you may think you can never eat turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes again, but in a few weeks or months you will find yourself dreaming of that meal once again. Freezing your leftovers is a great way to preserve that tasty meal and allows for you to heat everything up and enjoy it all over again. It can be helpful to freeze plates of food, that way you will only need to reheat a plate of food instead of multiple bags of food.

Donate your leftovers.Leftoverswap.com is a website for people to post pictures of their leftovers and then someone in need will respond and collect your unwanted food. You can download the leftoverswap app on your phone and be easily connected to people in need of a hot meal. Another similar app is cropmobster which connects consumers with food that would otherwise be thrown out.

Create new meals. If a turkey sandwich doesn’t sound too appetizing for Fridays lunch then how about using your leftover turkey to make turkey and dumplings soup. You can make all different kinds of stews and crockpot dinners with your leftovers that your family will enjoy. Check out websites such as BigOven which will help you repurpose your leftover ingredients.

Feel free to comment below with any other tips or tricks you may have regarding your Thanksgiving Day traditions and how you cut back on food waste. Thanks for reading our blog and be sure to check out our website at www.budgetdumpster.com.